Team EatingWell at the 2007 Fancy Food Show in San Francisco: Kevin, Claudine Ryan (Content Partnerships), Jessie, Larry Sommers (General Manager, Interactive Media & New Business), Lisa Gosselin (Editorial Director)
Have you wondered how the pomegranate got to be so hot? It all starts at food shows where everyone from food giants to mom-and-pop producers shows up to market “the next big idea.” Each year, the Fancy Food Show gathers some of the world’s best boutique foods under one, very big tent. This year’s show at the Moscone Center in San Francisco featured more than 1,000 exhibitors, with offerings ranging from artisanal cheeses to flavored sodas to imported pork products.
Food Editor Jessie Price and I tried to stay focused on the healthier products (not an easy task when you are walking down an aisle lined with samples of triple cream cheeses on one side and chocolate truffles on the other.) But the good news? More and more “gourmet” is going healthy. “Just being gourmet isn’t good enough anymore. The biggest request we get at my catering company is for ‘healthy appetizers,’” said Peggy Smith, who owns a catering company in Kennebunkport, Maine. Here are our top picks from the Fancy Food Show. —Lisa Gosselin, Editorial Director
Healthy Snacks Stuck in an airport with nothing but Doritos to eat? That may change this year as companies like Sabra (a Smart Choice winner in our upcoming March/April hummus taste test) roll out small, prepackaged bowls of hummus with pretzels and introduce hummus with veggies at Starbucks. Other great snack items: bite-size California figs and flavored canned tuna and salmon from G’Day Gourmet.
Organic Is Everywhere You might say, “Uh, duh….” However, the number of organic products has escalated to the point that the summer Fancy Food Show (in New York City) will feature an entire area devoted to organic and natural products.
Can You Say Cabernet? Cabernet and other wine flavors are finding their way into everything from dark chocolate to jams and spreads. Vintners and others have perfected distilling the flavanol-rich skins of red wine grapes into a variety of products. Some examples: a Zinfandel conserve—which tastes like a fine wine in a jam—and a similar paste from Australia’s Bio-Grape line. One of our favorite new products was a light, nonalcoholic fizzy drink called Vignette (the bottle looks like a wine bottle) that’s made from red or white wine grapes and tastes nothing like grape juice and everything like a light, refreshing cocktail.
Flax Is Back With America looking more closely at heart health and the value of omega-3s, flaxseeds are coming out of the pantry again. Hodgson Mill and others are meeting demand for these seeds in a variety of products.
Gourmet To Go TV dinners are dead. Long live “gourmet to go.” More and more companies are creating healthy, frozen prepackaged meals. Home Bistro and Fresh Direct (which delivers in the New York area) are now being joined by White Toque, a French food-service company that is creating high-end (think $10 an entree) frozen meals (everything from escargots to crème brûlée) using all natural ingredients. White Toque’s healthy chicken dinner (chicken, brown rice, bok choy) rings in low in calories and sodium but packs great taste. A great alternative to take out when time is short.
Now, drum roll, please—a few “Best in Show” awards: NEWEST FRUIT ON THE MARKET: How can you resist a fruit with a name like yumberry—especially when you find out this tiny red lychee-like fruit (a delicacy in China) is packed with antioxidants? Yumberry juice is now coming to the U.S., and yes, it is delicious.
TRENDIEST PRODUCT: Nailing a number of trends in one is Laloo’s Chocolate Cabernet goat’s-milk ice cream. Laura Howard ditched her career producing commercials in Hollywood, went on a yoga retreat in India and moved to Petaluma, California. There, she bought some goats and started Laloo. Other flavors include Black Mission Fig and Strawberry Darling with a balsamic swirl.
BEST PACKAGING: “People told me my chili made them fart, so I said I can’t make a fart-free chili until I grow fartless beans.” That’s how Idaho pinto bean farmer Craig Muchow started Fartless Factory, selling his beans in gunnysacks with his own home-grown poems on the back of each. Whenever he gets calls from anyone questioning his “truth in advertising,” Muchow has one answer. “I ask them to prove it,” he says with a chuckle.
Craig Muchow, Fartless Factory
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